Daily Routines

Maybe you’ve already discovered the Daily Routines site, a compendium of accounts of how creative people organize their days to do what it is they do. Readers are invited to submit documented accounts of the creative process, approach, or even environment of people like composers, architects, scientists, philosophers, and best of all for my interests, writers.

Among the writers already included at Daily Routines are those ranging from Flaubert, Dickenson, and Darwin through Vonnegut, Updike, and Bellow. Some accounts are only a couple of sentences while others go on for hundreds of words.

I’ve always been fascinated by the accounts writers give of their creative process. Whether it’s their rituals before sitting down, or investigating their past to find the font of their drive, or venturing into the scary part of themselves to understand their muses, I’ve always wanted to see how others do it. I don’t take instruction from this. In some cases I’d hate to be shackled with another writer’s routine or habit. I do get some sort of validation from reading such accounts though. The range and variety of approaches let me believe that my own ways are also valid.

The Guardian newspaper has run what could be considered a companion feature called Writer’s Rooms. In this series a photo of a given writer’s desk and work room is shown along with an account by the writer of how it all came to be or how it all works. Fascinating stuff.